How Physician Burnout can be Reduced by Smarter Data and not more Data

While it is true that healthcare reform has introduced a number of new processes and protocols that doctors need to follow, along with a firehose of data that they cannot possibly hope to digest, it has also ushered in a revolution in analytics capabilities and administrative best practices that have the power to reduce burnout.

In a bid to reform healthcare, physicians have become collateral damage.

The last decade of healthcare transformation has driven improvement in the quality of care individuals can expect from their healthcare providers as result of focus on evidence-based guidelines, EHRs and value-based payment models. While the frequency of hospital-acquired conditions is on a decline, health systems are beginning to realize cost-savings through bundled payment models, and 30-day readmissions rates are declining nationwide.

Meanwhile, physicians are leaving the profession in droves. The problem has gotten so severe that the Association of American Medical Colleges now projects a U.S. shortage of 42,600 to 121,300 physicians by 2030. In many places globally, the physician shortage is even more staggering.

Increasingly, facts points to physician burnout as the driver of this phenomenon. A new study published recently in JAMA finds that nearly half of new residents experience symptoms of burnout at least once a week. This comes on top of a 2016 study authored by doctors from the Mayo Clinic and American Medical Association that found that the prevalence of physician burnout has increased from 45.5% to 54.4% over the last 36 months.

Similarly, a survey of clinicians, clinical leaders, and healthcare executives conducted by NEJM Catalyst found that 83% of respondents characterized physician burnout as a serious or moderate problem in their organizations.

Citing a range of reasons, ranging from frustration with cumbersome electronic health record software to challenges wrangling payments from insurance companies, doctors are simply getting beaten up by the very system that was designed to enable them to improve healthcare. It’s affecting both their physical and mental health as well as work-life balance.

While it is true that healthcare reform has introduced a number of new processes and protocols that doctors need to follow, along with a firehose of data that they cannot possibly hope to digest, it has also ushered in a revolution in analytics capabilities and administrative best practices that have the power to reduce burnout. The key is to address the root causes of burnout, rather than the symptoms.

Burnout is commonly an indication of underlying organizational dysfunction. Effectively addressing that requires a comprehensive strategy that operates at the enterprise, departmental, and individual levels.

Remarkably, the authoritative research in this space suggests that the burnout phenomenon (in many professions, not just medicine) is driven by just six factors. They include the following.

• Work overload (and, more recently, information overload)

• Lack of control

• Insufficient reward

• Breakdown of community

• Absence of fairness

• Conflicting values

Ironically, the solution that enables physicians to spend more time with patients and less with technology is made possible by technology. But it’s probably not what you think.

While so much of healthcare has become flooded with unstructured, disparate data sets that can often create more confusion than answers, the data and analytics used to address physician burnout are decidedly pragmatic.

Fortunately, getting to the data and analytics that allow physicians and their practices pinpoint these inefficiencies in their workflows can be relatively easy. The healthcare IT boom of the past several years has produced all manner of analytics that can surface actionable insights, and the growth of artificial intelligence in the space is starting to make things better, changing our data management approach from one offering systems of record to one providing systems of insight. The challenge for health system leaders is to commit to find and treat that problem at its foundation.

The solutions are there; we’ve got to do more to support physicians in applying the same analytical, scientific rigor they do to their practice of medicine to the operation of their practices. For far too long now, physicians have been asked to roll with the constant influx of new regulatory requirements, to jump through just one more hoop, to suck it up and soldier on.